Joey Pigza was a boy with a divorced mother and father that do nothing but argue and wears pads that controls him from being too hyper. He is mom's helper, Mrs. Lapp's helper, Olivia's helper, Grandma's helper, Dad's helper, Pablo's helper, and even a helper for a sack full of dogs! Joey tries to correct everything in his life and the lives of the people in his life before he learns that he should be putting himself first and letting the others figure out their lives on their own. He lives with his mother and Grandmother in a house and his father, who also has ADHD, always rides his motorcycle around the neighborhood to make his mother mad. One time, his mother even got the broom and flung him into the tree and had to go to the hospital. His mother eventually had to get a restraining order put out for Joey's father because he wouldn't leave them alone. Joey just started being homeschooled with a blind girl that always gets him in trouble and isn't a fan of it and her mother wanted Joey to come because he would be a good influence on her. Joey soon finds out that his dog has ran away and when he goes to tell his mom about it, she tells him that she is leaving him and his Grandma to go live with her new boyfriend Booth. Joey starts to like Olivia, and begs her to come in and meet his Grandma because she said before she passes, she wants to meet at least one of Joey's friends but she never comes in. The cops came looking for Joey but he escaped in time and ran to Olivia's house. Olivia and Joey came up with a master plan to get Joey back at his school that he likes, he was going to be the bad boy and Olivia was going to act like a good, nice girl for the plan to work. Olivia made another deal with Joey that if he found a way to take her to the Godspell play she would tell his Grandma that they were friends. She ended up telling the Grandma they were friends and Joey took her to Godspell just before she was sent off to boarding school. Joey's Grandma eventually passes and leaves everything to him and Joey's dad leaves town. His mom gets dumped by her boyfriend and in the end, Joey and her start a new chapter with just them two and their dogs. I like that throughout this book, WWJD, 'What would Joey Do' gets mentioned throughout. It ties in with the title of the book and it shows that Joey is growing up and he wants to be viewed as a more mature Joey and not react like when he didn't have his ADHD under control and he acted out. I really enjoyed this book. I think I would have this book in my classroom library for my future fourth and fifth grade students. I feel like students who also suffer from ADHD and a dysfunctional family can relate this book and feel comfort by reading about another family that is like theirs or someone that deals with ADHD too. I think that they would appreciate this book and really enjoy it just as much as I did. I think that this book is also good at putting yourself in someone else's shoes and letting you experience someone else's life if you don't have to deal with this type of experiences. This can help students relate to other students better and show students to have empathy towards others because we don't always know someone's background and life experiences. I think the story had a very good ending that was a happy ending, so that made it that much better. I think that Joey has a bright future ahead of him and I owe this to his Grandma. I feel that she pushed him to make friends and really wanted a different/better life for Joey, not like the one his mother and father lived. I could see how much Joey's Grandma meant to him and this is why he pushed himself to make a friend, because that is what she wanted. I really enjoyed this book.
Spoiler Alert If you like sad stories and drama books, I think you might want to read this book. The genre of this book is realistic fiction because of the way the book describes real life problems. The reviewer's opinion of the book is that it's a great book and an outgoing story. The setting takes place at Joey's house and mostly at his mom's work place. Joey wanted his mom and dad to stop fighting and love each other. So, Joey decided that he was going to try to put them together without fighting but that didn't work. Then Joey and his grandma were trying to make a movie for his mom and dad but in the middle his grandma died right in front of him. The conflict is person vs. person because Joey's mom and dad are trying to kill each other but Joey won't let that happen. I was surprised when Joey was like to his grandma all mean to her then she died and he's like ma i'm sorry. I was moved by Joey getting on the bus then getting off and on. Then when the bus driver saw him he locked him out of the bus. Then when he followed it and then he tripped and lost the bus. Now he has to find the bus because his grandma is still on it. My favorite part was when Joey's mom tried killing her own husband cause he was being a jerk. Then the dad crashed into a tree and almost died. So when the police came they asked the mom what happened and she told them that "I was going to kill him but you got in my way" she said to the cops. Now she has to go to jail for 1 week and now grandma has to take care of Joey.A theme of the book is learning how to deal because his grandma dies and his parents are always fighting. Joey was trying to make a movie for his parents and he found his grandma dead in the middle of the movie. He didn't finish the movie, so his parents kept fighting because his father liked to drink a lot and his mom didn't like it. Joey had to learn to try to take care of himself. I thought the ending of the book was good because they became a family again. They went to a carnival and Joey's dad bought his mom a gift to make up. His mom was happy again and Joey was happy too. In conclusion i rate this book a 3-5 stars cause I liked the way how it put nice details in the book. I recommend this book to all my friends in need to read more and more books in the school year. If you like sad stories and drama book you might want to read this awesome book.
The story is about a child named Joey Pigza who has ADHD.His father Carter Pigza, who also has ADHD is riding his motorcycle around the neighborhood. Joey's mother comes out to scream at him, resulting in him crashing his motorcycle into a tree, where a branch stabs him. Joey's mom has him homeschooled by Mrs. Lapp, along with a cruel blind girl named Olivia Lapp, whom his grandma wants Joey to make friends with. His father kept on bugging their family so they put a restraining order to keep him away. His dog Pablo gets stolen by his father. As Carter is unsure exactly which chiuahua is Joey's, he takes all in town. Joey ends up returning the dogs to their rightful owners. One owner, however, had another dog in their depression of their previous one, and the two dogs do not cope. Joey takes the extra dog and renames her Pablita. His grandmother dies, and Joey's mom's boyfriend breaks up with her. Seeing that Joey's family is at unease, Mrs. Lapp no longer homeschools Joey, but Olivia becomes friends him.
—83petersimpson
I like this book so much that words will not suffice to list all the reasons why.I'll start by stating that anyone who scoffs at the YA genre might want to give this a try and see if you feel the same after you have finished the final page.No stranger to awards, Jack Gantos received the Newbery honor for Joey Pigza Loses Control, the Newbery Medal for Dead in Norvelt the Printz Honor and the Sibert Honor for Hole In My Life and he was a National Book Award finalist for Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key.What Would Joey Do is the third book in the series of ADHD pre-teen Joey Pigza.Gantos has the unique ability to create a loving character who struggles to cope with his disability. While he now can control the level of his medications and has a keen sense of what triggers episodes, his parents continue to be crazy and out of control.Longing for stability in an exceedingly unstable home life, Joey's loving, but somewhat erratic grandma is one of the few sources of sanity. Hiding behind a plastic shower curtain in the living room, she puffs cigarettes in equal measure to oxygen. Warning him that her end is near, she tells Joey he must find a friend.When he is home schooled by the mother of a blind, nasty girl, he adopts her as his friend. In this religious atmosphere, he is asked daily "What would Jesus do?" Claiming this mantra for himself, Joey decides to do good and thus tries to live his life by "What would Joey do?"As his insane, hyper neglectful father races throughout town in a beat up motor cycle trying to re-claim his son and x wife, Joey's mother spins further into violent episodes of rage.This book is heart wrenchingly sad and also humorously, undeniably funny.In the end, Joey realizes that what he must do is take care of himself because no one else will.Here is a quote that resonates:"Everyone had to wake up to somebody. Everyone had to wake up to themselves. And I was wondering who I might be if I didn't have the nutty family I had. And then I realized it didn't matter where I came from. It was where I was going that counted. And as long as I helped myself, I'd be going in the right direction."Destined to be one of my top reads for 2012.
—Linda Lipko
This is the third in a series of books about Joey Pigza. In the first two books Joey was evidently diagnosed with ADHD and, after a series of incidents at his original school, sent to a special school. Joey is certainly having a tough time - his parents are too busy with their love/hate separation dramas for either of them to have much time for him; meanwhile his grandmother is wheezing her way through her final days in a partitioned section of the lounge-room and mum’s new boyfriend is trying hard to be friendly to all. Joey’s mum has decided that Joey being homeschooled by a neighbour will solve everything. For Joey the reality is being ‘home’ educated next door with a determinedly unfriendly girl and by her mother who makes an odd habit of greeting him each day with the question, “What would Jesus do?” Poor Joey valiantly comes up with an answer each day but quickly realises the more pertinent question is about what he should do in each situation he finds himself. I wanted to hate this book for its poor portrayal of home education and for the fact that Joey had been so summarily diagnosed, labelled and medicated (he continually applies medication patches to try and calm himself down throughout the story) however Joey is such an irrepressible character, I felt many home-ed kids could identify with his situation - in terms of his diagnosis, feeling different and struggle to get life under control; hopefully there aren't any home ed parents like his though! I couldn’t help feeling the parents were the problem, not poor Joey. Unfortunately, as is so often the case with books featuring home-ed characters, the happy ending is that Joey gets to go back to school. Home Ed. Style: Christian with a structured curriculum Home Ed Portrayal: Home ed is portrayed as a last resort for desperate families of troubled children, or religious zealots who want to cloister their children from the world. Conclusion: An enjoyable story with a likeable protagonist despite the poor portrayal of home-ed
—Susan Wight
